May ’18 Newsletter

May ’18 Newsletter

there are someNew additions to the team!

We want to give a big welcome to our new Reader, Antoinette Scully, and Assistant Prose Editor, Tara Linn-Pickens. Antoinette resides in California, but was born and raised in Eatonville, Florida. She’s the creator of the literary blog Black & Bookish and is an amazing all-around human being. Tara just graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida, and she’s particularly fond of creative nonfiction.

If you’re interested and have 2-5 spare hours a week, we’re always looking for more volunteer readers too. Our readers are usually the first eyes on the work we receive, and every opinion matters. Just hit us up at longleafreview@gmail.com with a brief paragraph explaining your interest, 3-5 literary journals you love (besides us), and any previous experience you may have.

Antoinette Scully

Tara Linn-Pickens

fundraiser: The Historic Thomas House

The Historic Thomas House sits on the corner of Taylor St. and Kennedy Blvd in Eatonville, Florida. The house was Eatonville’s first church, and, later, its first town library. Eatonville is one of the first self-governing all-black municipalities in the United States, and was first incorporated in 1887. But the town itself is probably best known for being the adoptive hometown of Zora Neale Hurston and the setting for most of her fiction, including Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Antoinette Scully, one of our new readers, was raised in the Historic Thomas House. She wants to breathe new life into the building, and we want to help her. You can learn more about her journey so far on her blog, Black & Bookish, and we definitely recommend watching the video she made about her project below.

But to summarize: she plans to use it as a bookstore that sells literature from the across the African Diaspora while also providing a space for local art and literary events such as poetry readings, bookclubs, and rap battles after its restoration.

The restoration of the house itself is a worthy cause. As the oldest structure in Eatonville, this building has history.

But we also truly believe that a local bookstore celebrating stories from across the African Diaspora is also supporting and fostering a vibrant literary community in the historic town of Eatonville too, and we’re all about the lit community.

Watch Antoinette’s Introduction to The Historic Thomas Project:

WHAT WE’RE DOING TO HELP:

Longleaf Review will be offering, with proof of $5 donation to the Thomas House’s GoFundMe, an expedited submission response of 1 week. For a $10 donation, we will give personal feedback on your submission, which can range from structural revision suggestions to line edits, depending on the piece. We will point out the piece’s strengths and provide feedback on how to address its weaknesses.

All submissions will remain free with regular response times, and all donations are completely voluntary, as are our services in support of the Historic Thomas House project.

Additionally, all work submitted with proof of donation will also be considered for publication, just like any other regular submission, though we cannot guarantee it will be accepted.

Longleaf Review was inspired, in part, by Zora Neale Hurston’s work collecting folklore and her belief that everyone had a story to tell, and we want to help preserve this legacy and the town that helped shape who she was.